Born in New York City on Christmas Day, 1899, Humphrey Bogart was a child of privilege who eventually gagged on the silver spoon and enlisted in the Navy, where he acquired both a love of the sea and a steely independence. After Bogart got out of the service, an old friend pointed him to the theater (“I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets,” the actor once remarked), where he was relegated to minor parts as upper-crust young men in need of tennis partners.

The producer of The Petrified Forest was one of many who’d written off the actor as a lightweight - until he heard a performance from offstage and realized Bogart’s voice was perfect to play the ruthless Duke Mantee. After months on Broadway, Bogart reprised the breakthrough role onscreen, launching him on a string of gangster films, most notably HIGH SIERRA. That film introduced Bogart to up-and-coming writer John Huston, and the two became close friends. When Huston moved into the director’s chair for THE MALTESE FALCON, he cast the star; the two would collaborate on five more films, including such classics as THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and THE AFRICAN QUEEN, for which Bogart won his sole Oscar.

If that wasn’t enough to secure Bogart’s place in the movie history books, CASABLANCA alone would have done the job. It cemented the performer’s public persona as a man of action toughened by the world who never lost his decency or capacity for love; the Best Picture winner was exactly what America needed to see in 1942. The war years brought Bogie love in real life, too, in the form of young Lauren Bacall, who married him after co-starring in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with the actor. As the decade drew to a close, Bogart took greater control of his career by establishing Santana Productions, for which he appeared in such distinctive films as IN A LONELY PLACE and BEAT THE DEVIL.

Bogart’s life ended in 1957 after a battle with esophageal cancer, but even after his death, his legend continued to grow. Entertainment Weekly magazine named him the No. 1 movie legend of all time in 1997, and he was cited as the greatest male star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute two years later. Few motion picture actors of any generation have left a body of work with such enduring appeal.

Series compiled by John Hagelston and Grant Moninger. Program notes by John Hagelston.